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The two major players in online event ticketing, Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch and Tickets.com have taken their rivalry to court, and the little guy is claiming an early victory. Last week a federal judge dimissed part of a lawsuit filed by Ticketmaster against Tickets.com. The suit claims, among other things, that by linking directly to event information and ticketing systems on Ticketmaster Online, Tickets.com is engaging in copyright infringement.
Although U.S. District Court Judge Harry L. Hupp stopped short of dismissing the copyright infringement charge, he did reject Ticketmaster's claim that Tickets.com is in breach of contract because it uses unauthorized "deep links" to detailed Ticketmaster information about particular events. And he added, hyperlinking in general does not violate the Copyright Act. "There is no deception in what is happening," he said. "This is analogous to using a library's card index to get reference to particular items, albeit faster and more efficiently."
Indeed, that's the mission of Tickets.com. Although the site does sell tickets for some events, it doesn't have nearly the vast selection that Ticketmaster does (see BW 4/10/00, "A Ticket to Dot-Com Heaven"). That's because Ticketmaster has a lock on the event-ticketing world by virtue of its exclusive long-term contracts with hundreds of the world's largest venues and event-promotion companies.
FAST TICKETS.
So in the interest of providing a one-stop source of information and tickets for virtually any live event, Tickets.com often lists events that are on sale only through Ticketmaster, then provides links to Ticketmaster Online. "We aim to provide a search-engine capability that was missing in the field of live entertainment," says W. Thomas Gimple, CEO of Tickets.com. "Our mission is to get you to the ticket as fast as possible."
Charles Conn, CEO of Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch, says he doesn't have a problem with that. In fact, he's not averse to Tickets.com linking to Ticketmaster Online's home page, as hundreds of other Web sites do. What he's opposed to, he says, is that "they are taking our deep content and essentially representing it as their own." The suit also alleges that Tickets.com engages in false advertising by sometimes misstating what tickets are available on Ticketmaster Online and when they're going to go on sale.
That complaint wasn't dismissed by the judge. Nor were complaints of unfair business practices, trespass, and of course, copyright infringement. "The substance of our claim goes forward," Conn says.
Gimple says he's prepared to fight the suit. "We think it's unfounded," he says. "We're sending Ticketmaster Online thousands of consumers without charging them anything."
Still, some signs show that Tickets.com may be bowing to Ticketmaster's demands. Virtually all Tickets.com's links to Ticketmaster now go to the home page rather than to specific event listings. "We've gone to linking to the home page because it's less taxing on our resources," claims Andrew Dunkin, senior vice-president for marketing at Tickets.com. That could help make the final verdict less taxing for Tickets.com.
Arlene Weintraub in Los Angeles EDITED BY DOUGLAS HARBRECHT
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